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The Sierra Club Canada plans to start a national campaign this week attempting to stop the extension of Terry Fox Drive through the sensitive wetland habitat of the threatened Blanding’s turtle.
John Bennett, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada, said the club will use its network to reach thousands of environmentally minded citizens, asking them to put pressure on municipal, provincial and federal politicians to stop the four-kilometre, $47.7-million roadway.
“It’s just a stupid, stupid plan. This is about greed and avarice and building more houses in a place that’s not appropriate,” Bennett said. “They don’t need to build this road through this wetland.”
But Matt Muirhead, president of the Briarbrook Morgan’s Grant Community Association in Kanata, said that if the Sierra Club fights against the road, the community will fight back.
“If he’s going to launch a national campaign, he can be guaranteed I’m going to launch a very specific local campaign,” Muirhead said. “We need a viable route from here to the other part of Kanata and that is it.”
The road, which has been in the planning stages since 1999, is expected to form an arc connecting Kanata Lakes to Morgan’s Grant. Its construction is being expedited by the city this year to take advantage of $32 million in time-limited federal and provincial economic-stimulus spending.
Muirhead said the new road is needed because the only route now between the two communities is Goulbourn Forced Road, a winding, narrow roadway.
“It doesn’t have a solid bed. It falls into potholes on a regular basis. It’s terribly dangerous, you feel like you’re taking your life in your hands (to drive it),” he said. “I value wildlife and I value our natural landscape, but I value human life much more and it’s really a safety concern.”
The route of the proposed Terry Fox Drive extension has raised environmental concerns because it cuts through the South March Highlands, a candidate “area of natural and scientific interest” whose undeveloped marshes and forests provide habitat for frogs, turtles, salamanders, migratory birds and rare plant species.
The lead turtle scientist with the federal-government-supported Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, Ron Brooks, has warned that vehicle collisions on the busy new road will wipe out the local population of Blanding’s turtles, unless extreme mitigation measures — such as fencing off the entire roadway — are taken.
As well, the now-pristine area inside the arc of the new roadway is slated to be filled with subdivisions, resulting in “significant” loss of habitat and displacement of wildlife, according to an October 2009 draft environmental screening report by Dillon Consulting, commissioned by the City of Ottawa.
The city is currently developing environmental mitigation measures for three species that are protected by the provincial Species at Risk Act: the Blanding’s turtle, American ginseng, and butternut tree. If the province believes the mitigation measures are enough to protect the species, it will issue permits allowing the road to go ahead.
Kanata North Councillor Marianne Wilkinson said the mitigation measures are important, and so is the road. She conceded that the location of the road might not be perfect, but said that any route between north and south Kanata will have to pass through a natural area, causing some environmental disruption.
“There’s no way that all development in Ontario is going to be stopped because of endangered species. They’re everywhere,” she said. “And the Blanding’s turtles are going to be safe.”